[Paul watches the wall of wryness come back up, a distance unusual in someone Oscar's age (but what does that matter, with someone like him?), with a bitter twist of salt at the back of his own mouth. They're perhaps a meter apart in space, but worlds apart in context.

It's a wall he's tried and failed to scale before. He half-closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath, fixes the faces of the people he came here for in his mind.]

I don't blame you for acting on the knowledge you had at the time, according to your understanding of things. You saw an opportunity, and you acted. I've done the same.

[He has to work from base principles. He has to try to persuade Oscar to see his perspective, even if he doesn't understand it. They may never achieve a joint context, but perhaps they can still achieve communication.]

You assume he's the one I'm defending. He doesn't need me to defend him, and he didn't ask me to.

In your world, when people transgress against someone powerful, who is it that ends up harmed? [He tilts his head back, looking up at the filtered light through the greenhouse roof.] It's not the king who suffers most in a war, is it? Unless your universe is much more enlightened than mine is, I doubt it.

I don't want anyone to suffer through that. Not you, not the people who live in this house, and not the people who live in mine. Whatever you think of my methods, I want you to understand my motives.